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Google showed that it is making money from people searching online with their mobile devices, providing evidence that it can follow users wherever they search the web. Google, which presented quarterly earnings that easily surpassed analysts’ expectations, reported that revenue climbed 33 per cent and net income rose 26 per cent. It said mobile was on track to generate more than $US2.5 billion in revenue in the coming year and grew 2.5 times in the past year.

Clicks on ads on Google and other websites increased 28 per cent over the same quarter last year and 13 per cent over the second quarter this year, Google said. The amount Google was paid for clicks increased 5 per cent over last year, but decreased 5 per cent over the second quarter of this year.

Google reported net income for the period ending September 30 of $US2.73 billion, or $US8.33 a share, up from $US2.17 billion, or $US6.72 a share, a year ago. Excluding the cost of stock options and the related tax benefits, Google’s third-quarter profit was $US9.72 a share. Analysts had expected $US8.74 a share.

The company said revenue was $US9.72 billion, up from $US7.29 billion in the year-ago quarter. Net revenue, which excludes payments to ad partners, was $US7.51 billion, up from $US5.48 billion, above analysts’ expectations of $US7.2 billion. The New York Times

Starbucks is warning of a threat to world coffee supplies because of climate change. In a telephone interview with The Guardian, Jim Hanna, the company’s sustainability director, said its farmers were already seeing the effects of a changing climate, with severe hurricanes and more resistant bugs reducing crop yields. “What we are seeing as a company – as we look 10, 20, 30 years down the road, if conditions continue as they are – is a potentially significant risk to our supply chain, which is the Arabica coffee bean," Mr Hanna said.

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It was the second warning in less than a month of a threat to a food item many people can’t live without. New research from the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture warned it would be too hot to grow chocolate in much of the Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world’s main producers, by 2050.

Mr Hanna is to travel to Washington to brief the US Congress on climate change and coffee at an event sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The coffee giant is part of a business coalition that has been trying to push Congress and the Obama administration to act on climate change . The coalition, including companies such as Gap, is about to launch a campaign – showcasing its own action against climate change – ahead of the release of a landmark science report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Guardian

Paris prosecutors on Thursday dropped all attempted rape charges against
Dominique Strauss-Kahn
but said he had “sexually assaulted" his alleged victim.

The 62-year-old former International Monetary Fund chief had been accused by French writer Tristane Banon of attacking her in a flat in the French capital in 2003. She claimed he had acted like a “rutting chimpanzee". Following a three- month inquiry, judges said the violence shown by Mr Strauss-Kahn happened such a long time ago that a criminal case could not be launched.

While the statute of limitations for attempted rape in France is 10 years, it is only three years for sexual assault. Judges confirmed that “sex acts" had taken place between the two, and that Mr Strauss-Kahn had been unnecessarily violent.

While Mr Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers argued that he had now been “completely cleared", Ms Banon’s barrister, David Koubbi, said she had been “victorious" as Mr Strauss-Kahn was now an “unconvicted sex attacker".

She first spoke out after Mr Strauss-Kahn was arrested on charges of attempting to rape a chambermaid at a New York hotel in May. US prosecutors eventually dropped the charges after finding the maid, 32-year-old Nafissatou Diallo, had told a number of lies.

Mr Strauss-Kahn vehemently denied Ms Banon’s allegations and began suing her for defamation, although he did admit kissing her and making a pass at her.

The politician, who is being supported by his third wife, Anne Sinclair, also faces a civil case in New York over the incident at the Manhattan Sofitel. The Telegraph

Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge fund billionaire at the centre of one of the largest insider trading cases in history, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison. It was the longest prison term ever for insider trading, according to the US Justice Department, but substantially less than that sought by the prosecution against the man it called “a billion-dollar force of deception and corruption on Wall Street".

Rajaratnam, 54, who headed Galleon Management, was convicted in May on 14 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud for illegally using inside information to trade in stocks such as Goldman Sachs, Google and Hilton . The trading generated profits or avoided losses of $US72 million, the government estimated. The 11-year sentence reflected a trend toward tougher treatment of insider-trading convicts, said former federal prosecutor Robert W Ray. The Washington Post